Michelin Power All Season tyre

If you're looking for extra grip, puncture protection and reliability, the Michelin Power All Season is a good bet. However, if you want to keep up with the winter racers on your group ride and post a few speedy outings on Strava yourself during the dark months, there are faster all-season tyres out there.

• Pros: Grippy, reliable, easy to fit
• Cons: On the heavy side, lacks suppleness, not the fastest all-season tyre, no tubeless option

Michelin's headline claim for the Power All Season is that it offers 15 per cent more grip over its predecessor, the Pro4 Grip. It uses a rubber compound simply called 'Grip Compound' that is intended to work with a tread pattern called 'Hi Grip Design' to keep you rubber side down on slippery, dirty or wet surfaces.

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It is also claimed to be 20 per cent more puncture resistant than the Pro4 Grip thanks to a new aramid Protek+ belt.

Since the Pro4 Grip is no longer available, probably more relevant is how it compares to the Continental Grand Prix 4 Season, which is for many riders the benchmark winter tyre and the one I was riding on my winter bike before this test (full review to come).

Our 25mm Michelins were a smidge under their claimed weight of 270g on the road.cc Scales of Truth, but 30g per tyre heavier than the equivalent Contis. The casing is considerably thicker and less supple between the fingers, even though the compound itself feels tacky to the touch, and the sidewalls, too, felt more reinforced. This is as you'd expect: Michelin uses three layers of 60tpi casing for the Power All Season, while the GP 4 Seasons have three layers at a finer 110tpi each (Conti cheekily claiming 330tpi).

Since tubeless-ready rims and tyres with slightly varying diameters can play havoc with simply getting a tyre over the rim, I'm pleased to report that the Michelin All Seasons went onto a tubeless-ready DT Swiss R460 rim with thumbs only, and pinged into place nicely during inflation. They have rotation direction indicators to stop you fitting them 'backwards', but most people agree that a bike needs to go very fast indeed in the wet before sipings are necessary, and also that it's the compound that sticks a tyre to the tarmac rather than the tread pattern.

When mounted the Michelins measured 26mm, slightly narrower than the Continentals, probably because of the more rigid sidewalls.

Performance

I took them around my favourite test loop, which consists of a bit of everything – potholey lanes, a couple of sharp kicker hills, plus some fast main roads.

One of the first things I noticed was that the front tyre was noisy, as if it was having to be peeled from the road, which suggests the sticky compound is generating extra friction as well as extra grip. My impression over several weeks of testing on otherwise identical setups is that the Michelin Power All Season needs more energy to drive it than the GP 4 Season.

Despite the thicker, less supple casing, the ride quality was fine at 100psi. The grippy tread is able to soak up small vibrations without the carcass deforming, but it loses out to more supple tyres with a higher tpi count on rougher roads.

> Buyer's Guide: 18 of the best winter tyres for cycling

As for the grip, it was as good as Michelin claims and I was totally confident in the Power All Seasons. If you're not wearing a motorcycle helmet and leathers you don't go right to the edge of traction to find out where the breakaway point it, but on a slimy and tree-covered bend that local riders always take very cautiously I didn't feel any hint of slippage. Likewise, on the little-ring slopes I didn't get rear-wheel spin at all out of the saddle.

After a few rides, but admittedly not a full winter's worth, I haven't punctured and there are no cuts in the tread, so I'm as satisfied as it's possible to be that the Power All Seasons offer good protection. I can't yet comment on their durability: even though a soft, sticky tread surely can't be the hardest wearing, signs are good so far.

Value

At £47.99 the Michelin Power All Season tyres are cheaper than the Continental GP 4 Seasons, which retail at £54.95 each, and the very supple 320tpi Vittoria Corsa Control G2.0 (275g) is priced to go head to head with Conti at £54.99. However, the Michelin Power All Season is more expensive than the Pirelli P Zero 4S, which costs £43 and has a thread count of 127tpi and weighs 220g.

In summary, the Michelin Power All Season tyres with their sticky compound are reassuringly grippy, offer good puncture protection and are reasonably priced, but because of the heavier, less supple carcass their rolling speed suffers.

Verdict

Good quality tyre that offers grip and puncture protection but lacks the suppleness to be fast too